Holland has been through three major surgeries in the past three years. She found support in her large network of family and friends, but they were only part of the formula that reduced her anxiety.

“While I really believe in traditional medicine, I also like stretching to see what can enhance my health,” said Holland. “I was well prepared using this approach. People were quite surprised about my return to normality.”

Peggy Huddleston, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, developed the mind-body technique that, in part, teaches people how to relax.

“When patients really relax their vascular pressure changes and there is less bleeding,” said Huddleston. “Their immune system now is functioning at peak level and you accelerate healing.”

The process consists of five steps that begin as much as two weeks prior to surgery.

One of the steps teaches you how to turn worries into positive goals.

“Someone who's having a knee joint replacement is imagining hiking and their knee being fine afterward,” said Huddleston.

Another critical step is asking friends and family to think of you in the minutes before your surgery.

“Wrap me in a blanket of love. I'll be in the holding area,” patients tell their loved ones, according to Holland. She said the response from patients is that they feel a calming peace wrapping around them.

“They connect with a deep sense of inner peace. So, emotionally they feel better, but that also creates the whole biochemistry of healing,” said Huddleston.

Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston is one of dozens across the country that are now offering the program to patients who are about to undergo major procedures.

Members of the nursing staff and some anesthesiologists are trained to help.

Huddleston said that another step in her process can even prevent nausea following surgery. Patients fill out a page of the book and bring it to the anesthesiologist.

“They do that by saying, following this surgery you'll be thirsty for -- and the patient has filled in chicken soup or ginger ale. So they wake up in the recovery room saying, ‘I want my chicken soup.’ If you're thirsty or hungry you have no nausea,” said Huddleston.“I think when you witness it, that's the part that's really astounding,” said Lisa Barrett, a nurse in the Thoracic ICU at Brigham and Women’s hospital.

Barrett took a workshop on her own after hearing about the “heal faster” process from a patient.

“She had a peace about her. I was a little bit fascinated because that's not usually the norm that we see,” said Barrett. “We're used to giving medicine, repositioning people and trying the traditional ways to make people feel better, and this is a new way.”

“I was ready to embrace it,” said Holland.

She believes she is proof of that faster healing, with little pain or complications.

“I was lucky in that I didn't suffer like I think so many people do. I don't know that I could have felt any better going into the experience,” said Holland.

Studies at Harvard and several hospitals have backed up the results that patients see from the method.

One of them at The Lahey Clinic involved 56 patients having colorectal surgery. The study found that patients had less anxiety and were discharged 1.6 days sooner than those in a control group. The patients also used 60 percent less pain medication at home.